Prana Prana Bo Banna, Banana Fanna Fo Frauna…

CK is a teensy bit worried about dating herself here with the title of this post.  Please tell me (someone, anyone!) that you remember The Name Game song Shirley Ellis sang in the 60’s.

For those who don’t, here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MJLi5_dyn0

Thankfully prana is timeless, eternal and everlasting.  Unlike The Name Game, which may well be largely gone from our lexicon.

Prana is life-force.  And it’s what energy healers use to deliver clearing, healing energy to their patient/clients.  (Some energy healers use Chi, and I’m not excluding them from this post or invalidating their good work.) I’m a prana girl myself because my work is rooted in the chakra system and the electromagnetic field or EMF.

Six years ago I went to Peru and spent 2 weeks doing ceremony and visiting important Peruvian spiritual sites.  One of the amazing experiences of the trip was the Urabamba Salt Mines.  Small pools of water would collect the salt leaching from the soil.  In the summertime, the water evaporates, leaving piles of salt for the Peruvians to collect, use and sell.

We learned to stare into the pools with the sun’s reflection in them.  After a couple of minutes of staring, the eyes would begin to see a predominant color in the pool; red, green, yellow, purple, etc.  Several of us staring into the same pool would see different colors.  The shaman told us to eat that color; imagine taking it in through the eyes, nose, mouth, ears.  It was the frequency our bodies needed at that moment in time.

The transition inside of each of us as we consumed the needed color was palpable.  Peace, ease, well-being flooded our bodies, hearts and minds.

Flash forward three years to a February training on the Seven Planes of Consciousness.  During the lunchbreak, I took a 45-minute walk to a pine grove to move my body and be out in the cold, sparkling sunshine.

When I reached the pine grove, I took a prana bath.  In February?  Did I say cold?  Fortunately, a prana bath is not about nudity (although there are no rules about this!).  Standing in the grove with my face turned toward the sun, I used soft-focus and stared at the sun.  Now, pay attention.  I didn’t stare directly at the sun because it would damage my eyes to do so.  I looked at the sun, but my focus was directly below it, no damage, no sunglasses.

I also connected with my spleen chakra, because it receives and distributes prana to the body.

Standing in the sunshine, arms outstretched, I could feel my body’s intake of prana, life-force.  And as I stood there, a dominant color emerged that I could clearly see with my eyes.  Because of my learning from Peru, I instinctively understood that this was what my body needed for its health and well-being, so I ate the color.

I had been feeling rundown, stressed and overwhelmed that morning, and felt like I might be coming down with a cold.  After my prana bath, I was rejuvenated and restored.  No cold symptoms, no sense of fatigue.

So I’m just sayin’.  Any sunny day will do.  You don’t need a pine grove, although it’s certainly handy to have one nearby!  It is important to have your feet on the Earth, not concrete or asphalt.  You don’t need to spread your arms to your sides because you might look a little silly out in public that way.

You do need to stand still and focus your intent on receiving.  And you do need to look just beneath the sun, using soft focus.  You can blink as needed, although I find that this practice often stills the autonomic blink response.  And you may need to do it a few times before a color emerges.  (Stilling the mind is a good idea, too to allow emerging awareness.)  And allow a few minutes to pass.  Your body will know what to do to receive the prana, and it will go where needed.  The color you eat will do the same.

So for those of us who aren’t heading to Florida, the Bahamas, Bermuda or St. John for February break, we can all have a mini-vacation in our own back yards.  Courtesy of the sun and prana.

Have a great week, and keep your energy flowing!

CK